Alexandersmap

    Month: December 2020

    • The Cold Water Initiation

      “Though it be the hottest day in July on land, and the voyage is to last but four hours, take your thickest clothes with you, for you are about to float over melted icebergs.” – Henry David Thoreau, Cape Cod

      The stretch of water between Cape Sable Island in Nova Scotia and Cape Cod in Massachusetts is known as the Gulf of Maine. A lot of history has floated between these two points, from Native Americans and later the Basque fishing and whaling these rich and vibrant waters to explorers like Giovanni da Verrazzano and Samuel de Champlain mapping the coast and looking for places for settlements. The Gulf of Maine remains the one constant that each would recognize, though they might wonder where all the fish went until they glance back at the developed shoreline.

      In 1604 Champlain ventured south from Port Royal to explore the coast of Maine. It was on this trip that he discovered Acadia, and further south, the “baye longue” between two capes and a long stretch of sand beaches on the present coast of New Hampshire.” (David Hackett Fischer, Champlain’s Dream. It’s on these beaches that generations of New Englanders and vacationing Canadians have discovered the truth in Thoreau’s words: this water is as cold as melted icebergs!

      Cold water gets in your blood, and you don’t celebrate it so much as accept it for what it is: a shocking reminder of how insignificant we really are. The Atlantic Ocean is divided into the Northern Atlantic and the Southern Atlantic, but really, there are divisions within divisions. A swim in Miami is not the same as a swim in Virginia, and a swim in the Hamptons on Long Island is definitely not the same as a swim at Hampton Beach in New Hampshire.

      You aren’t really a New Englander until you’ve taken the plunge into the Gulf of Maine on a hot day. It’s an initiation of sorts into the extremes. There isn’t a person who swam in early July at Hampton Beach who couldn’t relate to the bobbing passengers at the end of Titanic. The cold water hardens you, tests your mettle, and reminds you of your mortality. And that’s why I’ve grown to love a bracingly cold swim now and then. That stinging skin is a shocking reminder that you’re still very much alive… if a bit numb.

    • Brighten Up: Winter Solstice 2020

      We’ve reached the 21st day of December and the Winter Solstice: the shortest day of the year, and the beginning of brighter days. And today is also the day Jupiter and Saturn have their Great Convergence, but New England looks to be clouded over for this once-every-800-years event. Such is our fate, but at least the earth starts coaxing us back towards the sun.

      Today the earth reaches its maximum tilt of 23.5 degrees away from the sun in the northern hemisphere and towards the sun in the southern hemisphere. I hope you southern hemisphere folks have a great summer, but it’s time for a bit more brightness up here, thank you. I’m not eschewing winter, for I enjoy my time with snow. But enough with the shorter days, thank you. We in the northern hemisphere could use this symbolic beacon of hope, this turning of the page, this tilting of the earth back in our favor more this year than any other in memory.

      Symbolically, this is a good day to make things brighter for ourselves. To begin our own mental tilt back towards the sun. To introduce positive new habits, to take longer walks, exercise more, reach out to more people. The days are getting brighter once again, and even if we can’t see the Great Convergence we can at least reconnect with loved ones to make one of our own.

      Ultimately we choose how we react to the world around us. But it’s nice to at least have the sun trending back in our general direction again. And after a dark year of worsening trends, it’s nice to have one going our way.

    • Stepping Out of Tiny Boxes

      Most people live their entire lives in tiny little boxes of their own making. I recognize the tendency because I too live in my own tiny box. But, for most people, the box we live in isn’t as tiny as it once was. It grows when we step out of it, over and over again. Until it isn’t such a tiny box after all.

      Experience is the great teacher, be it ours or the work of others before us. Reading and understanding are also forms of stepping out. Building things of significance, be they careers or causes or art or relationships, expand our tiny boxes. And journeys of consequence are also expansive in nature. I’ve never quite fit in my old box when I return from a faraway place or a mountain top, nor would I want to.

      Some choose to remain in their tiny boxes. Perhaps they find it comfortable in there. It isn’t our place to expand other people’s boxes, but we can gently coax them outside for a stretch. The sneaky part about helping other people expand their boxes is that ours expand in kind.

      Now and then I’ve realized that inside the box was far more comfortable than the place I found myself on the outside, but I couldn’t get back in again as hard as I tried. Soon any discomfort faded and I realized that it was just my hardened edges expanding to new places. I’ve learned to enjoy that feeling of discomfort more each time.

      We reach a point where we want to spend more time outside stretching, and less time pressed inside our borders. I hope that feeling never goes away, but I see it fades in some people. If you aren’t paying attention you get pretty comfortable in that box you’ve built and even stretching a little bit seems like a step too far.

      If we’re being honest with ourselves, sometimes it feels better to just stay where you’re comfortable. After all, there’s nothing cozy about leaping. Crossing chasms is scary and dangerous work. So why risk it?

      Because we weren’t born to live in tiny boxes.

    • En Passant, Knowing Your Place and Breaking Rules

      I once got in a debate with my grandfather about the rules of chess. Specifically, he would execute En Passant when I would attempt to move past his advancing pawn. At the time I thought I knew the rules of chess, but it seems I’d never fully grasped the rules the pawn plays by. It wasn’t until I took the time to learn chess at a deeper level that I realized he was right all along. And I can see him winking at me in my mind.

      For those who don’t play the game, a pawn may advance one square forward, can’t move past a piece that blocks its forward advance until that piece moves and may capture another piece diagonally forward only. Simple. And then they added another rule to help speed up the game a bit, allowing you to move every pawn two squares forward on its initial move only. Well, this created a problem as well, for if an opponent’s pawn had advanced to a point where your move two squares forward eliminated their ability to capture your pawn in it’s forward diagonal move, you were essentially stealing the already limited power from the opponent’s pawn.

      En Passant, French for “in passing“, is a rule that allows the opponent to say “not so fast!” (Well, really they would say “en passant“) and execute the move of putting their pawn onto your square where your recently deceased pawn had once been. It’s a way of telling you not to get too far ahead of yourself or you’ll pay the consequences.

      And there lies the dark side to En Passant: It’s reminding the pawns of the world to know their place, to not get ahead of themselves or they’ll suffer the consequences. En Passant was invented long before democracy, and pawns generally knew their place and skated their lanes. The bold were snuffed out if they went a step too far.

      In democratic societies we chafe at being pawns, and the bold among us do leap forward. The rules of law can still remind you you’re a pawn if you grow reckless, but mostly it’s other pawns telling you not to stick your neck out. And worse, En Passant largely resides in our own minds: Imposter syndrome, timidity, and fear of the unknown keep us skating in our own lane, one square at a time, while the big players in the world spin around us.

      A pawn that plays by the rules may advance forward diligently and become a queen or any player it wants should it reach the end. There’s a subtle message there too, and you look around and most people play that game. Skate your lane, reach the end and retire… Fine, I suppose, but a little less sparkle for your time on the board, don’t you think?

      No, there’s a place for boldness in this world. We are each in passing here for a very brief time. En Passant only applies to pawns, after all. And who said you had to be a pawn anyway?

    • Planets Dancing

      “in other breaking news
      a silver moon
      sailed
      above the world
      and the only ones
      who knew it
      were the ones who looked up”
      – Kat Lehmann, Small Stones From The River

      The skies cleared in New England after a day of heavy snow, allowing the few who ventured outside to see the waxing crescent moon looking like a giant in the western sky. A bit further along in their dip towards the western horizon was the equally stunning dance of Jupiter and Saturn. They’re slowly moving towards each other for the “Great Conjunction” on December 21st. Last night the moon was at 10% illumination, giving Jupiter and Saturn the spotlight. The three together made for a magical picture.

      I witnessed this dance across a field that cows graze on during the day, on days when it isn’t coated in snow. Last night the cows were huddled in their barn and the field sloped down towards the west, giving a wonderful view of the dance. I wonder if the cows took turns sneaking a peak through the barn door at this once in a lifetime event? Probably not. Most humans pay no attention, who can expect a cow to grasp the significance?

      Monday, December 21st seems to be trending towards rain and cloud cover. That’s par for the 2020 course, as we seem to have cloud cover for most of the celestial events this year. So maybe having the opportunity to witness something that hasn’t occurred at night since the year 1220 will be next to impossible here in New Hampshire. But we can hope for clear skies, for we’ll never see it again in our lifetimes.

      I wonder why more people aren’t lining the roads in wonder at the universe. But every day is a once in a lifetime event for each of us. Maybe we’re used to squandering moments? And maybe the world is too complex and broken for such things as great conjunctions. But I’d like to think that, maybe, they just haven’t looked up yet.

    • Islands of Time, Cornerstones of Castles

      “Behind the issue of how we allocate time lurks the even more fundamental issue of what we want to get out of our lives.” – Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle

      In reading Koch’s book it struck me how profoundly influential he was in Tim Ferriss’ The Four Hour Work Week. Not a shock, really, since Ferriss often refers to Koch’s book as one of his cornerstones. I suppose I’d always thought of his use of the Pareto Principle as the essential takeaway, but didn’t realize the extent to which Koch urges lifestyle design himself in his book.

      The 80/20 Principle offers the usual business cases for who you spend your time with and what you spend your time on in business, but I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting the deeper dive into the self that he thrusts upon you. I’ll tap into this book in future posts, but wanted to explore Koch’s top ten highest-value uses of time. Here they are:

      The Top 10 highest-value uses of time:
      1. Things that advance your overall purpose in life
      2. Things you have always wanted to do
      3. Things already in the 20/80 relationship of time to results
      4. Innovative ways of doing things that promise to slash the time required and/or multiply the quality of results
      5. Things other people tell you can’t be done
      6. Things other people have done successfully in a different arena
      7. Things that use your own creativity
      8. Things that you can get other people to do for you with relatively little effort on your part
      9. Anything with high-quality collaborators who have already transcended the 80/20 rule of time, who use time eccentrically and effectively
      10. Things for which it is now or never
      – Richard Koch, The 80/20 Principle

      The list is fascinating on a lot of levels as a look at what a “highly successful person” prioritizes. I’ve put that in quotations because not everyone has the same belief about what success is, but you can’t take away that he’s accomplished quite a bit using his belief system. We all have this lurking issue of time, for we aren’t immortal, are we? So what would you prioritize?

      Well, Koch suggests making four lists to identify your own 20 percent that you should prioritize. He segments them as “islands”, or small segments of time, under which you list the things you’ve done that have contributed disproportionately towards each. The segments are: Happiness Islands, Unhappiness Islands, Achievement Islands and Achievement Desert Islands (periods of greatest sterility or lowest productivity). Your task is straightforward: Identify each, and then act accordingly in how you prioritize your time.

      Ah, yes… Making lists is one thing. Acting accordingly is quite another. And this is where most people fall off. And this is what Thoreau meant in one of his most famous quotes:

      “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Thoreau would have seen common ground in Koch’s list, and he himself pointed the way in Walden:

      “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Ferriss also mentioned Walden as a cornerstone book, and it is for me as well. But cornerstones only mean something if you build your castle on top of them. Otherwise they’re just a few rocks oddly places that someone else might trip over if they were distracted with their own life. Koch’s four islands are a great guide for prioritization and action.

    • Which Comes First?

      Enter first applicant.

      “You understand that this is a simple test we are giving you before we offer you the job you have applied for?”
      “Yes.”
      “Well, what is two plus two?”
      “Four.”

      Enter second applicant.

      “Are you ready for the test?”
      “Yes.”
      “Well, what is two plus two?”
      “Whatever the boss says it is.”

      The second applicant got the job.

      Which comes first, orthodoxy or the truth?
      – Anthony De Mello, The Job, from The Song Of The Bird

      Hard to read this story and not immediately see similarities in the world of politics lately. You either kiss the ring and accept (and parrot) doctrine or you look for the truth outside the door. You see it with people who dare speak of the facts in the face of an overwhelming win in the US Presidential Election, and you see it with people who call you a snowflake if you believe Climate Change is an existential threat or wearing a mask in a pandemic might make a little sense. Call me what you want; give me science, thank you.

      There’s nothing new in this, of course – refer to Galileo or Darwin for examples of the dangers of proposing that the way people see the world might not be entirely accurate. This is especially true when you mess with people’s ideas about religion, politics, and nationalism. Americans generally come together when it counts most, and perhaps we’ll see that once the man who fancies himself the boss for life has less of a hold on power and his spin on orthodoxy.

      The question is, are some things worth the fight for truth, or is everything?

    • A Small Change

      “a small change
      in rudder
      affects both the journey
      and the destination”
      – Kat Lehmann, Small Stones From The River

      There is no doubt that the year brought unprecedented storms that have collectively altered our course. But what of the set of our sail? What of the rudder? The world in all its maddeningly unpredictable ways will be what it is, but our course is largely set by us.

      Ultimately we control very little in the world but how we react to it. We change course in countless ways all the time. This year offered many lessons. And choices: Alive time or dead time? Some may say it was a lost year, but I would argue it informed us greatly about our resilience, our priorities, and our adaptability. And with that hard-won knowledge, where do we steer to now?

      A small change, consistently acted upon, determines where we go. Small, constant changes lead to a zig-zagging, undetermined course. Which is better? It depends on where you want to be and how quickly you want to get there. Both bring you places. But we don’t want to be rudderless.

      I prefer to have the tiller and a compass heading I’m confident in. React as we must to the conditions we find ourselves in, but generally keep steering towards our destination. And discover what we may. For the journey is underway.

    • Ready and Open To It

      “I am grateful for what I have not yet completed”
      – Kat Lehmann, Small Stones from the River

      With an eye towards the weather the plotting resumes. Conspiracies of wonder, awaiting launch orders, sit at the ready. Waiting to begin again.

      I’m sometimes vexed at peaks I haven’t climbed, countries I haven’t visited, waterfalls unseen, books I haven’t read…. and words I haven’t written. I dwelled in one such moment yesterday. And then I looked out the window at a Bluebird on the feeder staring in indignation at a Downy Woodpecker who wouldn’t get off the suet already. I stifled a laugh and whatever irked me faded away.

      Of all the birds who visit the yard, the Bluebird is the most aware of where I am at any given time. When I’m outside they’re high up in the tree canopy awaiting the all clear. But they also know when I’m at the window watching them at the feeder. They’re hyper-aware creatures who visit on their terms. So I observe them from a step behind where I might observe other birds. Their visits are a gift subsidized with dried worms and suet.

      They remind me to be patient; for the world will come to you if you remain at the ready and open to it.

      …

      A side note: If you really want to wade into it, tap into the debate over whether common bird names are considered proper nouns and thus warrant capitalization. I’ve been known to stretch the rules of proper English in my blog, and though Wikipedia might refer to Sialia sialis as the Eastern bluebird, I’m just going to call it Bluebird. I always did enjoy stretching the rules.

    • On to 901

      This is my 900th blog post. That seems a lot and not many at all, depending on your perspective. From my perspective it’s a benchmark of progress akin to checking your weight on the scale or assessing where you landed at the end of the quarter or fiscal year. In other words, it isn’t an end to blogging, it’s just a point in time to look around and see what you’ve done. And where you need to go from here.

      From a cold numbers standpoint, this may be the 900th published, but there are another 56 drafts stacked up awaiting judgement behind it. And countless highlighted passages and quotes at the ready should I find myself tapped out. There’s never really been a shortage of things to write about. It’s always been about finding your voice.

      According to one random source I found, there are 152 million blogs on the internet, and 75 millions using WordPress. Generally, I fall into the micro-blogger category because my average blog post is less than 1000 words. This is by design, as I blog daily and feel a long form blog post is more of a weekly or monthly output. This makes me more of a Seth Godin-cadence blogger than, say, a Tim Ferriss-cadence blogger. I’ve considered starting a second blog of long form content and keeping this one as it is. Instead, I’ll just mix in longer posts on those topics that warrant a deeper dive or break it up into daily nuggets.

      Simply put, I’m not advertising, I’m not aggressively trying to gain followers through blogging. But I appreciate the followers I have, enjoy receiving comments and new followers, and generally try to keep things interesting enough that you don’t throw your hands up in frustration and go off to read one of the other 152 million blogs out there. Thanks for sticking around on this journey.

      I’ve discovered fascinating places and stepped off the beaten path through the blog, and have a long list of places yet to see. Alexandersmap started out as a regional travel blog, after all, and the travel bug still has a hold of me. As with everything, it continues to evolve, and surely will transform over the next 100 posts, and (hopefully) the 1000 after that. Who knows? With luck and a sound mind maybe I’ll hit 10,000 posts. At this pace that would be in 28 years… just imagine what we might be writing about then.

      You know what? I think I’ll just focus on 901. And hope I get there.